Do you know that the sun is the closest star to us? And which star goes after her?
We are used to considering the sun as a luminary around which our Earth rotates, and we don’t even think that this luminary is also a star. Moreover, the closest to us. But let's distract from the sun and look at other celestial bodies. Which of them is still close to us?
The closest star to the ground
The closest to the ground after the Sun is Proxima centaur. We learned about this a little more than a hundred years ago - the English astronomers discovered it only in 1915. It used to be that her “relative” was located closest to the ground - Alpha Centauri. In fact, this is a double star, which is a red dwarf.
- Small in size, with low temperature, red dwarfs are compressed over time, while heated, which leads to their transformation - they become white dwarfs. The same fate, according to astronomers, is waiting for the nearest neighbor, flashing from time to time.
- These outbreaks were discovered by American scientists as a result of an increase in the brightness of proxim centaurs, which usually has a dull glow, inconspicuous without a telescope. The indicator of the visible star value is 11.05M, the absolute is 15.49M.
It is impossible for the inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth to admire this star and in the presence of a telescope. She is at a distance 4.2 light years From us and is inferior to the sun in size and mass by seven times. Earthmen, to achieve proxima centaur, will need order 18 thousand years.
- Being a double of alpha centaur, proxima rotates around it, the frequency of rotation is about 500 thousand years. The Proxim of the Centaurus itself does not have satellites around it, the radiation of energy is minimal.
- The orbit of rotation of the star from time to time intersects with the milky way.
- The fact that the proxima of the centaur is part of the Alpha Centaurus system, scientists are still arguing. The main argument in favor of this possibility is that all these stars have the same movement vectors.
More recently, in 2016, a planet was opened next to our closest neighboring neighboring neighboring astronomers, similar in their characteristics to the ground. She was named Proksim of Centaurus b. This, of course, does not automatically mean that it is inhabited, because periodic outbreaks on the proxim of the Centaurus entail an increase in the level of all kinds of radiation.
Today, the proxima centaur is the star closest to us and the sun. She became one more than 32 thousand years ago. But the stars are moving, a little more than 30 thousand years will pass, and it will come to us the constellation Andromeda, and the closest neighbor will be the part of it, which is called Ross 248.
Video: About the proxim of the centaur
